Want to Save Money in Taxes This Year?

Tax Deductions That May Surprise You

This post on savingtoinvest.com I passed on to friends as there were some items in there that I was unaware of. Particularly being able to deduct my mortgage insurance premium. I just purchased a house and got an FHA loan so my mortgage insurance is through the roof! Its good to know that I can deduct this. Also, deducting start-up costs for a business is something that a lot people tend to overlook, particularly when they are so wrapped up in getting their businesses going.

A lot of CPAs will not go out of their way to suggest creative deductions, they will just do what you tell them to do. This is why its good to know all of these types of tax loopholes when getting all of your tax stuff ready to hand in to your accountant at the end of the year, or whenever you do your taxes. By the way, one of the biggest tax loopholes of the rich that I had no idea about is called ‘Cost Segregation.’ I did a post about it last month on this blog. Here’s a link to it if you’d like to know more: http://thinktankinvesting.com/how-do-companies-like-trump-realty-and-wal-mart-save-millions-of-dollars-on-taxes/

Any other tax deductions that you’d like to enlighten us about? Please share!

Source: http://www.savingtoinvest.com/2008/09/real-tax-deductions-that-may-surprise.html

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A Couple Useful Resources for Investors or Businesspeople

Remember the Milk: Task Management tool that lets you keep all your tasks organized in one place, but separated by as many categories as you need. TOTALLY BEATS OUT OUTLOOK - hands down!

Chandler 1.0: is a Serious, but Rough, To-Do Manager:an open-source, cross-platform scheduling app, was conceived back in 2002 as a potential Outlook-killer—a free organizer that would process all your email, calendar appointments and tasks into one smooth workflow, no matter what format or system they were on. Over its long and storied development, intriguingly chronicled in the book Dreaming in Code, Chandler morphed into a meekly-dubbed "Note-to-Self Organizer." There's a lot of neat ideas in Chandler, implemented in rough ways, and if you're a serious to-do hound, it just might find a place somewhere in your work flow. Check out some screenshots of this long-awaited Personal Information Manager and decide for yourself.  Click to check out the full article on Lifehacker.com

Jott.com: If you've ever been out on the road and remembered something you needed to do later, jott's perfect for you! It's free and you simply dial into your number, leave yourself a message and then get the email reminder when you get back to your computer.

Diarised Helps You Select The Best Meeting Time:  If you need to schedule a meeting and want to skip the hassle of emailing and playing phone tag to establish what time works best for everyone invited, a web-based schedule optimizer like Diarised will save you a headache or two. Visit Diarised and plug in information about the meeting, a description, the email addresses of the meeting attendees, and a list of potential meeting times. Diarised notifies attendees via email and they select the best meeting time. Diarised sends you an email summary of the optimal times. excerpted from Lifehacker.com



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Physical Therapist Looking to Start a Business

I am a physical therapist. I treat patients with injuries like back and neck strains, tendonitis, post surgery patients like knee surgery or something like that. My hands-on treatments (massage, joint mobilization etc) are billable as are other activities such as therapeutic ultrasound, electrical stimulation, therapeutic exercise, etc.

I would start the business without employees, other than myself, but would likely hire within (weeks or months) 1-4 other employees as aides and/or administrative. It is likely that I would outsource my billing.

My main source of income would be insurance payments with co-pays and some cash patients, liens and work comp claims. I would have very little overhead, some supplies mostly. In the beginning, I would possibly work in a fitness facility with the "owner" of the fitness business who owns most of his own equipment and machines. He leases a space and then subleases to other businesses. I would likely be paid on a percentage of collections basis that would increase as revenue increases.

My questions are the following:

Can I create a corporation for this business and not use it for awhile? My situation is a little unsettled right now. The gym owner and another Physical Therapist who owns his own business have both gone with S-corporations. This is where I was leaning.
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Who should help me setup my corp. or can I do it myself with little pain and suffering?


Should I create this corp with the situation unsettled or should I wait? The economy could unravel fairly quickly leaving me to look for other employment and likely unable to start my own business any time soon.

What are the major pros and cons of S-corp vs. LLC? I don't see myself getting big enough for a C-corp.

What would I need to do with each structure in the future? I have read that in some instances I might need to be holding yearly stock holder meetings or other such corporate stuff. I am looking for as simple as possible with as little personal exposure to liability as possible as well as tax benefits, which I do not know how to take advantage of nor do I understand them very well.
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Thank you for any help you can give me.

Posted by Steve Anderson


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